Padres Daily: All but settled; left without Laureano; missing Manny

Good morning,

Remember how well Tuesday went for the Padres?

Yesterday was the opposite of that.

The Cubs halted their losing streak. The Dodgers did too.

The Padres’ winning streak ended after four games, and that wasn’t their worst loss of the day.

My game story (here) from the 3-1 defeat at the hands of the Brewers focused on a season-ending (and probably postseason-ending) injury to Ramón Laureano.

We will talk more about that. It needs to be looked at in-depth.

First, let’s get this out of the way:

The Padres’ hopes of earning a home playoff series, which had risen as they worked to within 1½ games of both the Cubs and Dodgers, sank precipitously yesterday.

The Cubs’ magic number to clinch the No.4 seed is two.

They will finish their series against the Mets today and play the opener of their season-ending series against the Cardinals tomorrow before the Padres play their next game. If the Cubs win both games, the Padres will know they can rest whoever they want as much as they want against the Diamondbacks.

If the Cubs win even one of those games, the Padres have to sweep the Diamondbacks this weekend to have a chance at overtaking the No.4 seed.

As for the National League West title and accompanying No.3 seed, which has not realistically been in play for a week, the Dodgers are one victory or one Padres loss away from locking that up.

(The reason the Padres have more hope against the Cubs than the Dodgers is because they have the tiebreaker over the Cubs by virtue of a better intradivision record. The Dodgers won the season series against the Padres, so L.A. holds the tiebreaker in that race.)

So, what has been the most likely scenario for some time is more likely than ever — that the Padres will open the postseason Tuesday at Wrigley Field.

And that seemingly got more problematic yesterday.

What they’re left with

Laureano, who suffered a fracture in the index finger of his right hand on a swing in yesterday’s second inning, had cooled considerably after the torrid start to his time with the Padres.

But he was still a force in the lineup, a threat to rip an extra-base hit every time up.

And he hit from the right side.

The Padres will almost certainly face Cubs left-hander Shota Imanaga in Game 1 next week.

Imanaga held them to two runs (one earned) on eight hits over 12⅓ innings in two starts this season. They scored two runs on seven hits in seven innings against him in his only other start against them, in May 2024.

In that game, both runs came on a Jurickson Profar home run. Their only run against him at Wrigley Field this past April came on Martin Maldonado’s homer.

Left-handed hitting Gavin Sheets, who Mike Shildt said is the likely replacement for Laureano, is 0-for-2 against Imanaga.

Without the right-handed-hitting Laureano, the Padres’ lineup is likely going to feature five left-handed batters unless Shildt goes with the switch-hitting Bryce Johnson in left field. That is a viable option, as Johnson is batting .342/.377/.438 in 80 plate appearances.

As much as his ability to hit from the right side, Johnson’s defense might be what prompts a decision to start him in Game 1.

Sheets has become a serviceable left fielder. More than serviceable. Playing the position at quirky, wind-whipped Wrigley Field, though, is a different challenge.

(The Cubs could go with lefty Matthew Boyd in Game 2, as he held the Padres scoreless over six in innings at Wrigley and then allowed them two runs in 5⅓ innings in San Diego in April. But he has struggled a bit over the past month-plus. And right-handed rookie Cade Horton, who has not faced the Padres, has a 1.63 ERA over his past eight starts.)

Laureano’s absence also hurts the bench.

There is not necessarily an obvious fit to take his place on the roster.

Presumably, the Padres will want someone who can hit from the right side, especially since the Cubs’ bullpen has two excellent lefties that work in high-leverage situations.

They could recall catcher Luis Campusano, who the Padres hardly used in his limited time on the big-league roster and who they resisted calling up even when Maldonado was batting .180 in July. Or they could call up Yonathan Perlaza, a switch-hitter who had a .901 OPS (19 home runs, 49 doubles) in Triple-A this season, to make his big-league debut.

Whatever they do to try to cover Laureano’s absence, this is right up there with the biggest injury blows they have taken, especially considering its timing.

We haven’t made a huge deal out of injuries because the truth is they have been relatively healthy. But they have absorbed some big hits.

“It’s one of those seasons we have seldom had our entire lineup in one piece,” Shildt said. “So we’re used to it, and we figured it out, and we’ve gotten this far, and we’re going to go much further with it. A lot of confidence in the group that we have — the 13 (position players) that will be on our playoff roster. They are more than seasoned and battle tested and ready to go win baseball games.”

What about Manny?

No matter who replaces Laureano, what the Padres need is for the real Manny Machado to get back in the lineup.

The version that has been there since Aug. 1 might as well not have been.

Yesterday, Machado struck out a season-high four times. The last time he had struck out that many times in a game was April 30, 2023.

Along the way, he missed on eight of his 11 swings yesterday. The eight whiffs were tied for second most in a game in his career and were his most since Sept. 21, 2022.

A few days ago, Machado explained the Padres’ struggles with a simple, “I’ve sucked.”

Here is how bad:

The only one of those numbers that is a career worst over a 48-game span is the 51 strikeouts. But all the rest are close to the bottom.

There have been people in the organization suggesting for weeks that Machado, who has started all but two games this season, should get four or five days in a row off. That opportunity could be there this weekend if the games are meaningless in terms of seeding.

Cease finishes

Jeff Sanders wrote (here) about Dylan Cease after he allowed one run over five innings yesterday in what may have been a tuneup for a start next week against the Cubs.

As noted in my game story, the Padres are considering having Cease start in the wild-card series.

Here is how his last three starts against the Cubs have gone:

The Padres will wait to see what happens with Yu Darvish on Friday and Michael King on Saturday before making a decision about who starts after Nick Pivetta takes the ball in Game 1 against the Cubs.

Tidbits

• Jackson Merrill’s home run, which tied yesterday’s game 1-1 in the sixth inning, was his seventh in his past 16 games. He has a 1.111 OPS in 68 plate appearances in that span.
• The home run Jeremiah Estrada allowed in the ninth inning was the seventh he has surrendered in his past 19 outings (17⅓ innings, 81 batters faced). Before this stretch, he had gone 22 appearances (22⅔ innings, 81 batters faced) without allowing a homer.
• Luis Arraez was 1-for-3 with a walk yesterday. His 13-game hitting streak is the longest active streak in the major leagues and is three shy of his career high set earlier this season. Arraez is batting .353 (18-for-51) during this run.
• Ryan O’Hearn went 2-for-4 yesterday and is 12-for-24 during a six-game hitting streak.
• The 11 runs the Brewers scored against the Padres this season were the fewest ever allowed by a Padres team in a season series of six games or more.
• Mike Shildt was ejected for arguing a called third strike on Freddy Fermin in yesterday’s eighth inning. It was his fifth ejection this season, one fewer than MLB leaders Aaron Boone (Yankees)and Oli Marmol (Cardinals).
• Sanders’ notebook also talked about Xander Bogaerts’ second game back from the injured list and David Morgan’s first.

All right, that’s it for me.

No game today, so the next newsletter will probably be in your inbox Saturday. I’m not sure how many newsletters there will be this weekend, especially if the games are meaningless. I have to prepare my advance stories for the wild-card series.

In any event, we will have extensive coverage on our Padres page, beginning with a story by Annie Heilbrunn that will post around noon today on the value of players with postseason experience.

Talk to you at some point this weekend.